Apple's new M1-powered MacBook Air gained Spotlight, Dictation, and Do Not Disturb function keys

Apple announced the first MacBook Air to be powered by Apple silicon today and it's already shaping up to be a great little notebook. We're also starting to learn more about it as we all do a little digging and there's an interesting tidbit in relation to its keyboard – it has some new keys.

Well, kind of. As spotted by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the new M1-powered MacBook Air has done away with the Launchpad and keyboard brightness keys and replaced them with keys for Spotlight, Dictation, and Do Not Disturb. Despite there already being a perfectly good keyboard shortcut for Spotlight at the very least.

The loss of the Launchpad key is something a full 100% of people will never even notice – I defy anyone to prove to me that they use Launchpad – but the removal of keyboard brightness keys might impact a few people here and there. Still, I assume Apple has some usage numbers to back this kind of thing up.

I'd love to know what those numbers are, though. As for the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, that thing has the infamous Touch Bar in lieu of buttons anyway.